How to Make a Prop Boom Microphone

So, this is an I'ble in two parts really... The Boom mic on a pole, and the sound box that goes round your kneck. This is another prop I have made for this years Gangshow, and I hope that somewhere along the line it may help someone as part of a costume or whatever...

As with all my I'bles I don't *really* plan what I'm going to make... I just form and idea and roll with it... I have never made one before, nor seen one up close... but well... from what I imagine one to look like, I think I come pretty close... all in all I think this project cost me no more than £5 as I had most of the junk already in my house to build it from...

Anyway, enough of me rambling on... let's get started eh?

~* I'm entering this into the Epilog Challenge as I would LOVE a laser cutter, it would make, making props ALOT easier*~

Since this is in two parts I'll break it down for you into head and box... I'm sure you can work out which is which

• Scissors/ Knife
• Two plastic bottles
• Cardboard
• Glue/ Glue gun
• Pen/ Pencil
• Various old wires ( I used the connectors off an old pair of headphones, and some off a broken pair of speakers
• Duct tape (quack quack)
• Grey fur ( I bought 1 meter... but only used maybe a 1/4 of it
• Long pole, I used a clothes prop, which I spray painted but a long dowl would probably suffice

Not sure as to why there is a Loo roll in the main picture... I can't remember EVER using it... oh well hehe


Box

• Scissors/ Knife
• Black webbing
• Cardboard
• Chunky pair of headphones
• Head phone Jack (one of those ones thich converts the thick jack into a thin one... you can get them in £Land for...wait for it.... £1)
• Black paint
• Marker pen

Step one: Cut your bottles down.

Basically I cut the bottles to just below where the straight sides start to curve up towards the opening, and put the cut off bit to one side

With one of the cut off bits, use a sharp knife to cut off the kneck of the bottle ( see picture) The other bottle top will form the part which holds the mic to the pole

You should have something resembling what I have in the picture

So that my two bottles fit inside one another, I cut a slit down one bottle.

They should now fit together, It was at this point which I glued them to one another, making sure it was aproximatly the right length for my boom mic

The third picture looks like well... a bullet shape... where I have glued the bottle upper to one of the bottle ends... to form a sort of  plastic bottle torpedo

You need to now shape the part that will hold your boom mic head to the pole... I then promptly covered this part in Duct tape because I could'nt find my spray paint

Just put it to one side and don't forget about it

Now, remember that bottle kneck we cut off? glue that onto the bottom of your plastic bottle... I'll explain why later

Okay so your bottle kneck is glued on yeah? we now need to insert a peice of cardboard ( I used a cardboard tube) into the bottle kneck to form the esction that holds the wire.

what I did was this:

Cut out a short length of cardboard tube and cover with black tape ( since I'm assuming your as lazy as I am)
Glue this tube into the end of your boom mic..

Now canibalise a pair of broken headphones... what you want is the wire, and the jack that you would ordinarily plug into your computer  ( I extended this wire but I'll come to that later with the box section)

Glue the metal jack onto the bottom of the tube (like in picture)

I also added a small arial... by gluing in an old paint brush

I then (using duct tape) closed the hole in the tube and hid any un-sightly bits of glue


(un-subscribed viewrs to the site, I *really apologise, I try to only put say one image on my I'bles... but sometimes It's just not possible... just click JOIN it's more fun that way!)

Okay, so I started drawing round my book mic to get the right fur shape... but decided that it would be probably better to keep reletivly rectangular... Make sure the fur arround the bottom of the mic (the bottle kneck you have JUST glued on) sits flush against the bottle kneck

on the rounded end, I just tucked any excess fur inside the hole so that I didn't have to sew anything shut etc

So I just glued it all together.... I *love* my glue gun

So... remember that part I told you to put to one side before? Grab a-hold of it... and slip it over the top of your pole... Now's the time to glue that together

Some people may think that It may have been easier to attach the pole before the fur? I don't know... this way wasn't too bad..

Because I was using a cloths line prop... I had toglue the top down with a small piece of cardboard for stability as glueing something that's rounded to something thats furry isn't particularily easy... but I'm sure you'll work it out


I slid my duct taped shoulder part down onto the fur and glued arround it... I also added alot of glue down the sides (between the pole and the 'shoulder' piece)

Make sure you make yourself a coffee before that part as you'll be sitting there for ages waiting for the glue to harden

Put your mic head to one side whislt it dries

I'm not going to be condersending and teach you how to make a rectangular box... Just I'm going to tell you that mine had a 'lip' around the top edge to make it look more... I dunno... *real*

Once I had three sides of my box together, I cut slits in the side sections and fed my webbing through the slits to form the shoulder strap. I then just tied a knot in the webbing because I'm lazy

I added a small section in the middle of the box to act as a support for the top piece and the side yet to glue on

In the top part of the box, I made a small part to poke the metal jack (for the headphones) through ... I added the jack, as the headphones are expensive, and I don't want people to rob them after the show

I then glued the jack in place


then.......


Glued the top piece into the three sided rectrangular box

Make your three sided  rectangular box into a 4 sided one and paint black

Remember when we put the jack into the boom mic head? Remember when I said I extended the lead? Well this is why

Everytime I see the boom mic on the tellybox... they always seem to have an excess of wire wrapped arround the pole, feeding into either the movie camera (which I am also making) or into the sound box

for this, I butchered a pair of broken speakers, duct taped the end of the wire, to the end that is plugged into the mic head.... and prodded the jacks into the sound box

I didn't glue them into place, as I have yet to transport the props to the show and it would be a ball ache

By now, you should have a boom mic... I'm sorry I couldn't explain myself propperly in places, so i hope the picture helped

If you liked it rate it and comment... and remember to check my other I'bles for inspiration

Cheerio

Jay